Another piece from the Huffington Post on Verbal First Aid that sheds some light on the growing interest in culture and parenting styles.
An excerpt for you:
Interestingly enough, we sold the publishing rights for our book “Verbal First Aid for Children” to a Taiwanese publisher the same day that “tiger moms” went viral.
For those of you who already know what Verbal First Aid is and how it applies to children, you may know why I think it’s “interesting.”
Both for those who have not yet heard of Verbal First Aid, it is simply the therapeutic use of language to facilitate physical healing in real time. It is simple, effective, free and potentially life-saving. All you need is you, your desire to be of help to a child in crisis and carefully chosen words.
At the same time American parents have been engaged in animated debate about traditional Asian parenting, parents in Taiwan are about to be exposed to an American-born concept that is quite different stylistically from the more martial approach Amy Chua has presented in “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”
To go to the post, please click here.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Jan 27th, 2011. Comment. 
The other day we received a beautiful note after Judith Simon Prager appeared on Between the Lines. She was so moved by the whole concept of Verbal First Aid that
she shared this with us and we hope, in sharing it with you, that it inspires you to consider not only the power of words but their potential to heal.
Watched the interview with Barry Kibrick [Between the Lines] and it was interesting that you mentioned the reaction people have to a bloody nose. My son was subject to this problem since he was a year old. The doctor explained what caused it and that he would outgrow it. So, when it occurred, no one in the family got excited, or scared, etc.–one day at school, his older sister (in kindergarten) had a bloody nose. Well, the teacher panicked, her classmates were scared, but bless her heart, my daughter calmly told the teacher that she needed to sit quietly, took a tissue and pinched her nose until the bleeding stopped. After school, the teacher commented on how calm my daughter was throughout the incident and how she had calmed the class and the teacher herself in minutes. She asked me how I had taught her to react in that situation. I told her that the doctor had explained her brother’s problem to the family and since her brother frequently had a bloody nose, it was not a life threatening or scary thing.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Aug 14th, 2010. Comment.
Yet, if we are wise, it does matter and we should mind.
What we say to others not only affects how they feel, it affects how they heal. What we say to ourselves, even in the privacy of our own minds changes our neural pathways, our biochemistry, even our genetic expression.
Rick Hanson has written an extraordinary piece in The Wise Brain Bulletin on the mind, the brain and God. In it he discusses the neurobiology of thought. On page 8 of the bulletin, he writes about Verbal First Aid:
Stimulating the brain by providing alternative scenarios and images to a person in crisis can engender measurable changes in our bodies as well as alter the way we perceive ourselves and our health. In so doing we are also enhancing our sense of mastery. This is a very important idea when working with trauma, because one of the primary complaints in trauma treatment is an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.
He makes the case, as do we, that words–and the images they generate–impact us in ways we are just beginning to comprehend.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Jun 9th, 2010. Comment.
Thank you for joining us!
This is where we’d like to invite you–our readers and all the people who have attended our workshops or heard about Verbal First Aid–to share your stories, your questions, your ideas about this extraordinary protocol.
We have been teaching Verbal First Aid for many years now and the response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic-both for the concept and the results people have enjoyed when they’ve used the principles of therapeutic communication in their lives.
We are very excited to share our newest book with you and will be regularly posting on this blog ourselves. We’ll share with you our thoughts, our stories and those of others we meet along the road, and our own musings as we bring this simply beautiful idea to people around the world.
The book, Verbal First Aid, which is geared for use with children, will be released this June, just as you settle into your summer routine.
Our wish is for this website to be a fount of information for you as well as a source of connection and support with others who care about the children in their lives and believe that it is possible to be healing in both our manner and our words.
Thank you for stopping by. We’ll be writing more soon. In the meantime, if you have questions or comments, feel free to sign in and leave your comments to us or contact either of us at our websites.
Blessings,
Judith and Judith
Filed under Uncategorized by on Mar 22nd, 2010. 3 Comments.
